The Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless are condemning a plan by the City to shelter families with children in cubicles at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field.

“Sheltering families with children in cramped and open cubicles at Floyd Bennett Field not only raises serious legal questions, but runs afoul of this Administration’s previous statements to provide safe and appropriate shelter to this extremely vulnerable population,” reads a statement from the organizations.

“Private rooms, not open cubicles, are needed to ensure the safety of families with children and to reduce the transmission of infectious disease, among other obvious reasons,” the statement continues.  “We are still waiting for specifics, but, should this plan contradict the Boston consent decree (which guarantees the legal right to shelter for homeless families with minor children) or relevant laws, we will have no choice but to seek an immediate injunction from the court.”

The City’s new policy of limiting shelter stays for families with children to 60 days, together with this latest announcement, will disrupt children’s access to education which has been the source of needed stability for recent arrivals. It also raises concerns about access to medical care and other vital services.

In September, Legal Aid, the Coalition for the Homeless and more than 100 other organizations from around New York State representing advocates, services providers, and faith groups issued a letter to Governor Kathy Hochul urging her to develop a comprehensive statewide decompression and resettlement plan for the new arrivals and to immediately prioritize deploying state resources to ensure sufficient temporary housing capacity for new arrivals and other unhoused New Yorkers.

In July, Legal Aid and the Coalition for the Homeless also called on the City to advance a variety of reforms to increase shelter capacity.